Somewhere Over the Rainbow
by gagethemage
Summary: A look into the brief life of Jason Kemp, the boy whose body Debbie found


Like Debbie, I've never been able to stop thinking about the boy found in the dumpster. This is what he might have been like. Feedback is welcome.  
  
Somewhere Over the Rainbow  
  
The little boy awoke at sunset.  
  
The toy robot he'd laid down to take a nap with was cutting into his back and he rolled off it, wincing a little bit, and feeling it to make sure that it wasn't broken.  
  
He played with the toy in the dim light for a little while until the pressure in his bladder and the growling of his stomach forced him off the pull-out bed. He'd lived in this house for his entire four years, and he didn't need light to find his way down the hall and into the bathroom.  
  
Finishing, he padded into the kitchen, his bare feet sticking to the unwashed floor. A box of cereal laid sideways and open on the table, but to his disappointment, there were only a few pieces left. He ate them anyway, and a handful of the sweet dust in the bottom of the plastic inner bag, but it just made him hungrier.  
  
He debated for a while on what to do, and then went back to the living room, standing on his tiptoes to open the front door and walk outside.  
  
The air conditioner indoors had been on full-blast, so the Florida evening heat almost made him stagger. He wanted to go back inside, but his stomach growled again and he sighed, shutting the door behind him and walking across the sand toward a small group of people standing around a fire.  
  
His mother was laughing loudly, sitting on the lap of a tall, burly man the child had never seen before. Her arms were wrapped around his neck.  
  
"Jason, what're you doing out here? Mommy's busy." she blinked, as if she was having trouble seeing him.  
  
"I'm hungry, Mommy." He dug his toes into the sand. "Real hungry."  
  
"I'll take care of him." Another woman said. "Come on, Jason. You want a hot dog?"  
  
He glanced at his mother, and she nodded, so he followed the other woman closer to the fire, where she quickly roasted a link and put it in a bun for him. "There you go, Squirt. Let me know if you want more."  
  
"Thank you ma'am." He said politely. She was silent while he ate. "You have good manners. Your Mommy must be proud of you." She said at last.  
  
"Kid's a trip." Jason's mother called out. "Sings too, just like his Daddy. Fucking prick." Everyone laughed, including the woman who had fed Jason.  
  
"Sing something, Jason." His mother called. "Sing that one song."  
  
The boy was embarrassed. Now that his hunger was satisfied, he wanted to go back home and back to bed, but everyone was staring at him. If he didn't sing, his mother might get mad at him.  
  
"Why are there so many songs about rainbows  
  
And what's on the other side.?  
  
Rainbows are visions  
  
But only illusions  
  
And rainbows have nothing to hide.  
  
That's what some say and some  
  
Choose to believe it.  
  
I know they're wrong wait and see.  
  
Someday we'll find it  
  
The rainbow connection  
  
The lovers, the dreamers, and me."  
  
Everyone clapped, and Jason bowed. His mother was kissing the guy now, so the child slipped away, back toward the house.  
  
He saw a rainbow once, last year. What was on the other side of it, he wondered. Maybe his father? Maybe... something else?  
  
He looked back toward the beach and the fire and the people, and he could hear his mother laughing again. "Something else." He whispered to himself. "Gotta be something good."  
  
**********************************************  
  
His head hit the cement floor of the garage and he saw stars. Through them he could make out the slight from of Stephen scrambling to his feet and running toward the open door. He was torn between wanting the other boy to escape, get out of here, and a feeling of betrayal and abandonment.  
  
"Get up!" The man kicked at him, and Jason rolled into a ball. "GET UP, YOU LITTLE SHIT! FUCKING LITTLE COCKSUCKER!"  
  
"I'm not!" Jason wailed, trying to move away. "I'm not, I swear!"  
  
"DON'T YOU LIE TO ME, BOY! I SAW YOU KISSING HIM! LITTLE FAG!"  
  
His foster father's shoe connected with Jason's back over and over. "GET UP! GET IN THE CAR! NO FAG IS GONNA LIVE IN MY HOUSE!"  
  
Jason managed to right himself, shaking, and made his way toward the green Dodge, every muscle in his body screaming in agony.  
  
He hadn't meant to be bad. Stephen was his friend, they'd just be playing and then Stephen had started kissing him. He knew it was wrong; he knew they should have stopped, but it felt good. He hadn't wanted it to ever end, but then his Dad... no, not his dad. His foster dad. One of them. He'd had a lot in the past 8 years, since his mother had did, but this one was the meanest. He wasn't sorry to be getting kicked out. He didn't think his foster mother was going to miss him very much, either.  
  
But oh, how he would miss Stephen. Even if the other boy had gotten him into trouble.  
  
What was wrong with him? Why had he liked kissing a guy? Was he a fag like his foster dad said? Would it be such a bad thing if he was?  
  
*******************************************  
  
One things he was most proud of was that he never took drugs. He was willing to get drunk, but that was as far as it went. His excuse was that he wasn't sure how it was going to react with his asthma meds, and most of the tricks seemed to accept that. They didn't know the real reason; they didn't know what it was like to find your mother lying stone cold on the floor one morning with one eye bright red from burst blood vessels and her arm purple and bloated under a cheap rubber hose.  
  
He thought he was doing okay at the moment, in spite of everything. He made enough in the factory to keep up with the rent on his apartment, even if he wasn't able to afford anything to put in it. Enough money to have breakfast at the diner every morning, even if that was the only food he could afford for the rest of the day. Enough to get into the clubs or the baths once or twice a week.  
  
This was only the beginning. He sat near the bar, taking a break from dancing for a minute. He wasn't going to live in that dump for much longer. He was saving up every extra penny that he had for a better place, and looking for a better job. Maybe every Kemp before him had been a loser, but he wasn't. He watched the guys who came in here; watched them dancing in clothes that cost more than he made in a month; watching them drive away in cars that cost more than he could make in two years. That life was possible; he knew for a fact that a lot of them had arrived here with as little as he had.  
  
He saw the names carved in the baseboard of his apartment. Every man who'd started out in Vaseline Towers left his mark there before moving on. Sometimes in the night he reached out, ran his fingers over the grooves, tracing them, whispering them from memory. Sam, Kyle, Robert, Marlon... there were 19 names in that baseboard. 19 guys who had escaped from there into better, richer, happier lives. One day, he'd sit here with boxes packed behind him, carving Jason into the board. That thought was what he lived for.  
  
"Hey." A man moved next to him, and Jason smiled up at him. He was a little older, maybe in his mid 20's, with curly red hair and a wrestler's build. His eyes were puppy-brown.  
  
"Hey." Jason said back, feeling his body stir.  
  
"Wanna get out of here?" the man asked. "My place isn't far."  
  
"Let's go." Jason slid off the stool and the man took his hand. The younger man noted absently the strength in those fingers and his cock grew harder. He had a taste for stronger, older men. A shrink might have said he was looking for a father figure, but that was crap. He was looking for a good lay like everyone else around here, and this man could provide it.  
  
They walked together through the alley, the trick still holding on to his hand, passed the men leaning against the walls. Talking, drinking, giving head. Modesty was something he'd outgrown very quickly here.  
  
They rounded the corner together, and suddenly Jason found himself pressed back against a rough brick wall, the trick's mouth crushing his.  
  
"I thought... we were going back... to your place." Jason managed to get out.  
  
"Shut up!" the man hissed, and his hands were around Jason's throat then, squeezing.  
  
It was like an asthma attack. His vision swam, and he tugged at the hands, but they were like iron. His vision turned red, and then began to get dark.  
  
No! It wasn't supposed to be like this, end like this! He was supposed to make it out, be somebody. He had to carve his name on the board!  
  
His thoughts were growing weak, but his vision cleared for just a moment, and above his head he saw a rainbow flag waving, and he remembered... something about a beach. Tasting hotdogs. Singing with hot sand under his feet, hearing the ocean in the distance had the song been.  
  
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connec.... 


End file.
